Gorbachev Pleads For Aid From West, Says It Will Assist Reforms

MOSCOW — President Mikhail Gorbachev appealed Tuesday for immediate and decisive action by the West to aid the Soviet confederation as it struggles to right a foundering economy and shore up democracy in the wake of last month`s failed coup.

Speaking to the opening session of the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), Gorbachev said the West was obliged more than ever to realize that Soviet reforms cannot succeed without its help.

``I sincerely hope the West will now pay greater attention to what I have said so many times before,`` Gorbachev said pointedly. ``We need assistance, cooperation and solidarity. We are counting on it.``

The Soviet president has repeatedly appealed for Western economic help-particularly from the U.S., Western Europe, Japan and Canada.

Gorbachev also promised to work to end human rights violations and promote individual freedoms in his rapidly changing country.

Participants at the meeting embarked Tuesday on a four-week project to review progress on democracy and human rights throughout the world.

In his address, Gorbachev sounded an alarm by saying democracy and human rights could not survive in the USSR without stability and prosperity.

``For human rights to become a reality, they have to be backed up legally and economically,`` he said.

There were signs Tuesday that the Bush administration, while still taking a cautious approach toward the aid issue, is starting to ease some conditions it had previously set for Western assistance.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who arrived in Moscow Tuesday night, told reporters aboard his plane that a Soviet commitment to an economic reform plan-even before actual implementation-would be enough to trigger Western aid.

Before the abortive coup dramatically changed the Soviet political scene, the administration had stressed the need to see action, not just plans, before the West would offer substantial help.

``What needs to be done is to make sure they understand what we think is required,`` Baker said. ``And if they take those steps, we will be there.``

In meetings this week, Baker also is looking for assurances about Soviet safeguards on nuclear weapons.

Baker will meet with Gorbachev Wednesday morning at the start of a five-day visit to the new Soviet confederation and three newly independent Baltic nations. The secretary, who is the most senior American official to visit Moscow since the failed coup Aug. 19, said he plans to investigate the new political scene.

Baker`s talks with a far broader range of officials than in the past are likely to overshadow his meeting with Gorbachev. Those he is scheduled to see include powerful republican leaders, such as Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the reformist mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), the new KGB chief, the new defense minister and members of the central government`s economic reform commission.

Gorbachev told the CSCE Tuesday that conditions in his country were precarious and that cooperation with the West was vital.

The collapse of the old Soviet system following the brief coup-combined with an already catastrophic economic situation, prospects of a poor harvest and the approach of winter-all have contributed to the growing sense of alarm. He also warned European nations that they faced a flood of refugees if Soviet political and economic reforms failed.

A number of European officials in Moscow for the CSCE meeting joined the chorus of dire warnings.

``It is obvious that the food situation could be critical this winter,``

said Frans Andriessen, the European Community`s external relations commissioner. He added that energy shortages also could not be ruled out.

The Soviet government, which spent the last three weeks trying to establish a new order from the rubble left by the coup, started a diplomatic offensive Tuesday to secure economic assistance.

As Gorbachev spoke, two senior Soviet envoys were dispatched to Europe and the Middle East. Alexander Yakovlev, a close adviser to Gorbachev and one of the intellectual fathers of Gorbachev`s reforms, arrived in Germany Tuesday.

``Frankly speaking,`` Yakovlev said, ``we are going to need help during this hard winter that lies ahead.``

Germany has been in the forefront of Western efforts to aid the Soviets. Last week German bankers said a top priority must be a rescheduling of Soviet payments of the country`s $65 billion debt that come due through the rest of the year.

The other Soviet envoy, Yevgeny Primakov, was to visit six Middle Eastern nations to discuss regional policy, but also to pursue chances for economic help.